Taking a Gamble on Finding Happiness…

Salt and Pepper Puss

My sister does great and amazing work at this great and amazing place called Wilderwood. They had a fundraiser the other day and of course I attended, because I like to support good causes and you should too, especially this one. So I’m there and I’m talking to my sister as she is sitting selling tickets for the chili cook off. Let me preface this next part by saying my sister is really bubbly (especially after a few beers), somewhat flirty (super flirty), and very petite and cute (the reason I always take pictures of her stuffing her face with food). So she’s sitting there and in the five minutes I was next to her, one man offered to buy her a shot while buying his chili ticket and another came to buy a ticket and, of course, flirt with her. Somehow, they got on the subject of this man’s grey hair and my sister is all like, “I like the salt and pepper look. It’s sexy.” And then she touched his hair and proceeded to tell him how she found one grey hair on her head and she tried to find it to show him and of course she couldn’t because it had mysteriously disappeared. All the while I’m standing quietly watching this soap opera unravel. He didn’t score, but he did support a good cause, so it’s all the same.

The guy leaves and I tell my sister that one grey hair for 41 is not that bad. Of course, I don’t have any grey hair. I’m forty and proud that I don’t have to dye my hair. I actually look super young. I’ve been very fortunate and thankful for my youthful looks. Except for the chin hairs that started to sprout when I was in my twenties. I am not even kidding when I tell you that I went to sleep one night with no hair on my face, I had a series of bad dreams and when I woke up, I shit you not, I had a grey hair growing from my chin that was at least four inches long. It was worse than A Nightmare on Elm Street. It was a nightmare on my face. And I plucked it and stared at it for hours and then tossed it. Now they just show up in droves overnight. Not four inches long, but I’d rather have one long one than twenty five short ones. And when I turned 30, I still looked 21 even though I think the day I turned 30, my body started rejecting alcohol and my hangovers are doubly painful when I decide to binge drink. And now that I am 40, I still have people tell me that I look like I’m in my late 20’s or early 30’s. Thank you very much. I’ll take it.

But a few months ago, don’t ask me why I was examining my nether region, I think it was because I was debating “the great shave.” I actually think it was while I was planning my tryst with Kymani Marley. I’m going to post that whole debacle tomorrow. Anyway, so I’m examining the grass before I mow it, because maybe I’ll shave a heart in it or something cute in case I get lucky, super lucky. So in the midst of looking at my “stuff,” I see grey hair….down there!!! And not just a hair. Not a cute little one that can be plucked out. No…. it’s a lot. Like eight or ten or twelve hairs. I have a salt and pepper pussy!! This is not good. Nobody told me 4o was going to look like this. This is not fair. Now I have a decision to make. Do I stop having sex so I don’t have to think about it? Do I walk around with my salt and pepper puss and not worry about it because maybe men think its sexy like women think salt and pepper hair on a man is sexy? Or do I walk around bald like a disappointed 12-year old? Or do I buy some hair dye? Do they even make it for that? I’ll take the sensitive skin version, please. And make it red!!

I think when you turn 21 there should be a pamphlet that they hand out to you at the liquor store as you are buying your first “legal” bottle. Remember the little “what to expect” pamphlets they handed out in sex ed when you were learning about puberty? It would look just like that. Hot pink, white letters and it would tell you things for example it might look like this:

Happy Birthday! You’re 21. Enjoy this day. No other day will be like this. After you sober up tomorrow, go ahead and invest in a good set of tweezers. You will need them for your beard. Your body will start to change. Things will start expanding…mostly your waistline. Do not eat that whole container of ice cream. By time you are thirty, you will wish you could drink like you are about to tonight, but those days will be long gone. As you creep up on forty, more changes will happen. Probably the most noticeable and traumatic will be that you will have to start sleeping with men your age or older because they will be the only ones who understand your salt and pepper pussy dilemma.

But my sister was worried about that one grey hair on her mostly blonde head. I’ll take your one grey hair and raise you a dozen….in my secret garden. Forty is rough.